Family
by idioticonion
Summary: We all know the story: Shannon dumped him, then Barney became awesome. Or do we...? Spoilers for HIMYM, AU Season 3. Characters and lore from Supernatural to season 3.
1. Chapter 1

**Family**

_May 1998_

James watched as his younger brother scrabbled in the dirt, covering the hole in the ground with his bare hands. His dirty-blonde hair hung in a curtain over his face, hiding the tortured expression, the vacant blue eyes. James was glad of that. He couldn't bear to see his brother in such pain, but at least Barney was still alive.

Nothing had worked after Shannon had left, not alcohol, not getting him laid (even though Rhonda wasn't exactly the hottest chick there ever was), not even good brotherly advice. All that had led to a frantic trip to the emergency room and a couple of hours of nail-biting waiting while Barney had his stomach pumped. James thought he'd always remember his Mom's face, as pale as he'd ever seen her, and her hushed, angry words on hearing that her youngest son had overdosed on sleeping pills.

"You look after your brother, Jimmy Stinson, you hear me? Don't you let this ever happen again!"

So here they were, at this crossroads, with Barney so far gone that he didn't even have the energy to ask James how he knew about this stuff. Hell, James didn't even know himself if he knew what he was doing himself. He just remembered Mom's friend Alma-May, from fifteen years back, telling him all about the hoodoo and the deals a smart kid could make with the spirit world.

At first, James was pretty sure it hadn't worked. He'd never really expected it to work. He was counting on conning Barney somehow, making him believe the deal was done somehow. James had even approached a few of the guys from work to talk about setting up an elaborate play, lights and mirrors, to convince his brother that his life was going to get better. Mind over matter… the placebo effect. James had been willing to try anything at this point.

Anything to stop Barney from attempting to take his own life again.

Barney stood and brushed the dirt from the knees of his jeans, hanging his head despondently. James took a step forward to reach him but suddenly it was like he was moving through treacle.

Suddenly there was a woman there with them, on the deserted highway, in the middle of the night.

A really hot, smoking hot, woman.

"Hello Barnaby Stinson," she said, extending her hand. "Boy, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Er, hi?" Barney answered shyly. He turned around to look at James, his eyes wide with shock, and mouthed "What the hell?"

"Hell… interesting…" The woman said. James blinked, and there she was, standing directly between the two brothers, without actually moving an inch. "Let's cut to the chase, boys. You want something from me, I want something from you. We here to do a deal?"

James nodded encouragingly at Barney.

"Will you help me?" Barney croaked, his eyes brimming with tears. "Please?"

The woman smiled, a strange, dead smile, and her eyes flashed with a burning red fire. James felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. Alma-May used to speak of the benevolent spirits who were there to protect and guide people through the trials and tribulations of the world. However, she sometimes also spoke, with darkly-veiled hints, of another kind of spirit.

"I'll help you," She said, smiling. "I'll give you ten years of the most incredible life you can imagine right now. I'll give you the time of your life."

"And what does he have to give you in return?" James asked, suspiciously.

"His…" She smiled. "His life. His soul. After ten years, he belongs to me…"

"Barney- don't-" James tried to reach out, realizing his terrible mistake, suddenly cursing Alma-May's memory and the foolish thoughts that had brought him here, to this spot. But he couldn't speak, he couldn't move. The spirit stretched out her hand, made a fist in mid-air and James began to choke.

"Stop it!" Barney pleaded. "Don't hurt him!"

"Do you want my help?" The woman turned on James's younger brother.

"Don't hurt James!"

"Do you want my help?" The woman repeated, her tone strident, demanding.

"Yes! I want it to stop!" Tears were rolling down Barney's cheeks. "I never want to feel this way over a woman again. I just want to not care. I want this to all stop!"

The woman's fingers extended and James took a huge, shuddering breath, his throat no longer constricted.

"Is that all?" The woman laughed a musical laugh. To James, the sound was creepy and maybe a little evil. "For ten years, not to care about women?"

Barney looked over to James again, and his brother could see the panic in his eyes.

"I don't know…" Barney stuttered. "What do I ask for, world peace? End global hunger? Tyranny? How much do I get for my soul?"

James laughed, he couldn't help it. Even now, with his very life and soul on the line, his little brother was a hippy freak. It was ridiculous! Impossible! This couldn't be happening. "For crap's sake lady, just make him awesome," he blurted.

"Done…" The woman said, reached forward, and grabbed Barney around the neck. She pulled him in for a kiss and for a moment it seemed as though she were pulling his brother's soul out right there and then. There was an odd shimmer in the air between them, and then the woman disappeared. She literally vanished.

"Oh my god…" James said, stumbling forward and almost falling on his ass.

And when Barney turned towards him, there was something new in his eyes. Something dark. If James didn't know better, he'd have sworn that for a moment, the whites of his brother's eyes were blotted out completely, leaving a sheen of shark-like, midnight black.

*--*--*

_Ten years later_

James loved his younger brother, but the guy was infuriating.

For a year, he'd been begging Barney to take him seriously, trying to remind him of that night ten years ago, of the curse that Barney had taken on willingly. For that final month he'd become even more frantic, calling Barney every day and begging him to fly over to stay with him and Tom. He'd used every trick in the book. If Barney died, his son, Sam, would grow up without an uncle. His friends would mourn him.

If Barney died, James would carry the guilt inside him forever.

But, with a few months to go something had happened that had distracted Barney completely from the problem of his immortal soul.

Barney had slept with Robin.

James could have seen that one coming a mile away. That's what you got when you put a guy with no conscience towards women together with a super hot friend of the female variety. You got sex. Yeah, like that wasn't going to happen sooner or later.

When Ted turned on his brother, James had conversations with Barney that were terrifyingly reminiscent of the Shannon situation so many years ago. Barney calling him in tears. Barney getting blind drunk and suicidal. Barney's voice dulling into that monotone that chilled James to the bone. It was as though all the good done by the spirit of the crossroads had been unpicked in one night.

Barney may be immune to being hurt by women, but nothing in the contract ever said he was protected against being hurt by another guy. And James, more than anyone else he thought Barney knew, understood the deep bond between men that had nothing to do with romantic love. The Greeks understood it, and modern day man had reduced it to jock horseplay or into trite rituals such as Barney's own bro-code.

But the devotion of true friends ran deep, and James understood and was scared for his brother. He felt as though somehow the world had turned full circle, bringing them both back to the place they stood ten years ago.

It took all James's strength to sit up at night with Barney, trying to convince him not to turn his gun on himself. The fact that Barney had a gun ("for work… please!" was all the explanation James had gotten) was scary enough.

James wondered if Barney didn't believe that he was really going to lose his soul in May, or if he just didn't care, of if maybe they'd both imagined that night. It was so long ago, so surreal, it felt like a dream.

Then one day, one lunch time, just as he was leaving the house to go back to work after checking up on Sam, James got the call.

Barney had been hit by a bus.

It was exactly ten years to the day from their deal with the devil. And James would have done anything to take it back.

*--*--*


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

_2008_

Ten years wasn't enough time to say goodbye to his brother, not when James barely believed that night at the crossroads had really happened. He tried to explain this to Marshall and Lily at the hospital, in half garbled sentences. He tried to tell them how guilty he felt, all the time knowing that he sounded like a crazy person.

Nothing felt real any more, not a single thing in these last ten years. Not finding his own true identity, finding Tom, his true love, adopting Sam, living his fabulous life, it felt like James had profited somehow from the deal Barney had made. It felt like James had experienced nothing but good fortune, while his brother… what did Barney have? It should have been Barney, living the good life, and maybe to an outsider it might have seemed that he was. But really, during the brief time they spent together now that James had moved so far away, it was plain to see that his little brother's life was pretty empty.

And then, in the past couple of weeks, it had gotten even emptier.

So now, only forty minutes after getting off the plane, James was in a Manhattan hospital, and it seemed like Barney's life might be over after all. Marshall and Lily had met him there, hugged him, sat him down on a rickety plastic chair and told him how Barney was in a coma. James just ached inside, like there was a tear in the fabric of his soul. He felt despair for the first time in years, real despair, and it had all come tumbling out. Their terrible secret deal done that night at the crossroads, how Barney had changed then, how he'd never once fallen in love with another woman, not in ten years. It had been as though Barney's soul was already being eaten away.

"And then if Ted hadn't been such a dick about this Robin thing…" James blurted. Marshall and Lily quickly held hands and giving him a look that told James he'd gone too far. "I'm sorry," James said, waving his hand out blindly in front of his face. "I'm sorry, that was a douche-y thing to say. It's just… I never thought…" He laughed. "I guess you guys think I'm insane, yeah? I mean, all this Hoodoo crap?" Then he voiced his real fear. "I think… I think Barney's in hell… He's never gonna wake up." He whispered.

"No…" Marshall said, patting his arm. "No… god, no. And of course we believe you, dude. We're total believers! There's a whole bunch of lore about supernatural deals made at a crossroads. But usually they don't end with the guy being hit by a bus…" He glanced over at Lily with a panicked expression just as a nurse rushed out over to them.

"Are you the next of kin?" She asked Marshall, who shook his head and pointed at James.

"That's his brother."

The nurse did a double take, then shrugged. "Look, there's a problem. Mr Stinson… he's disappeared."

"Disappeared?" James repeated, dumbly. "What the hell do you mean, girl?"

"Well, one of the orderlies…" The nurse swallowed. "David, one of our orderlies said that he saw him walk out. Which is impossible because-"

"You said he was in a coma!" Lily interrupted.

The nurse gulped. "Not only that. But Mr Stinson has two broken legs."

James couldn't help it, he began to laugh. He'd always feared what would happen at the end, and a bus crash had been the last thing he'd ever expected. And this… was this better, or not? Was the worst yet to come?

*--*--*

_1998_

"James…?" Barney asked carefully, as his brother straightened his tie, readying his brother for his first day at his new job with Altrucell. James nodded at him to spit it out, whatever it was Barney wanted to ask.

"It's just… what happens?" His younger brother continued.

"What happens with what, dude?" James asked.

"In ten years. What happens? I mean… exactly?"

James's blood ran cold, turned to ice in his veins. "Barn…"

"It's just, she said she owned my soul… Like… does that mean I'll die? I mean, how? Do I just fall down dead, die in my sleep, what? And then… where do I go? My soul?"

James remembered a story Alma-May told him once, about the hounds of hell and demons and the end of days. He hoped against hope that it was all just a fairy tale. It had to be a fantasy… _had_ to be. He couldn't bear to think of his brother burning in hell; A real, actual, tangible hell.

"We said we weren't going to talk about that again," James managed to say, gruffly. "Now who's the greatest wingman of all time?"

"You are, Bro," Barney replied, reluctantly.

"Damn straight!" James said, offering his little brother a high-five and was relieved to see Barney flash him a grin as he slapped his hand. This was better, surely? This was better than razor blades or a bullet or drowning the Hudson. It had to be.

If James kept telling himself that, it stopped him thinking about the low growl he always imagined he could hear, faint, but getting stronger.

*--*--*

_2008_

The first thing they needed to do was find Barney, of that the three of them were in complete agreement. James was keen to involve Ted - if Barney was likely to try to contact anyone, it would be Ted.

When Marshall offered to call a friend "who could help", James assumed it would be Ted, but was saddened to find Marshall talking animatedly to a different guy, some other guy... Dan or Dean or something. When James rounded on Marshall, venting his anger, he was told how how Ted had broken down, almost completely, and how Robin was having to stay with him, just to try to keep him together. Even Ted's girlfriend Stella had no effect on him.

According Lily, Ted blamed himself.

As well he should do, James thought, as he, Marshall and Lily had tried everywhere they could think. GNB, various strip joints, clubs, bars, even Barney's old Laser Tag place, but nothing. They all gathered at Barney's apartment just before midnight, to maybe wait and see if he would return home. And it was easier to fixate on Ted. None of them wanted to talk about the obvious problem here: The obvious physical impossibility of it all. Marshall and Lily seemed way too calm, way too composed. Almost as if this sort of thing had happened to them before.

None of them wanted to talk about what they might find if they actually located Barney. None of them wanted to talk about the coma, the broken body, how in the hell Barney had walked out of the hospital. Whatever this was, it didn't feel like the miracle that Marshall still hoped it might be. But finally, when they were all slumped on Barney's couch, shielding their eyes from the glare of his criminally large TV screen, Marshall cleared his throat to break the silence.

Then a key rattled in the door.

Barney walked in, with a girl on each arm.

There was a brief commotion, a tangle of limbs as the three of them tried to stand up. James managed it first, taking two steps towards Barney, unable to fight the overwhelming relief that swept through him.

"Barney!" Marshall yelled, as James's younger brother turned his face towards them and for the first time they could see his eyes.

Barney's eyes were two black pits.

It was as though a block of stone hit James square in the chest, forcing him back down onto the couch. Barney lifted his hand casually as if swatting a fly and James felt the pressure on his chest increase until he was groaning in pain. Lily screamed and Marshall yelled obscenities, then gurgled into silence.

"Oh shut the hell up," Barney snapped at them as each of the girls sashayed their way into the room. His voice sounded wrong. It was a wheedling voice, a whining voice with a very slight lisp. "Don't you get it? Barney's not at home anymore! This meat suit's mine now," it said.

Despite being barely able to breathe, let alone speak, James felt a shiver go through him. It had never occurred to him, through these long years of anguish at his brother's fate, that he'd be in any danger himself at the end.

"Let go…" James grunted, the edge of his vision greying. "Give back… his soul… please!" Gasping, he grit his teeth in agony as his ribs took the strain of the pressure on his chest.

The black-eyed thing laughed. "Stupid… I don't have his soul. That's… long gone. Or… soon will be. I'm just the tenant in his broken body. And let me tell you, it's not that great in here any more, even without him to fight me off. Now, I'm not sure what a spleen does, but I'm sure it 'ain't this!"

James twisted against the couch as Marshall tried to move beside him. The big man managed to speak. "What about… the hell hounds?"

Barney's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Hell hounds? What are you talking about?"

James nodded encouragingly as the big man continued, fighting against the invisible force that had the three of them pinned down. "Barney's ten years are up. We were expecting the hell hounds to-"

And suddenly, terrifyingly, there was a growl.

The black-eyed thing's head whipped around and he muttered "Hell hounds? Oh shit!" before opening his mouth wide, wider, and vomiting a gritty black smoke up into the air and over the floor. He went on and on, expelling the choking stuff until his eyes rolled back in his head and his body slumped into a heap on the ground with a snap of bone that made James, Lily and Marshall wince.

Then James realized two things. Firstly, that he was free to move. The intolerable pressure on his chest has eased.

And secondly, that the front door was shaking, the sound of growling had gotten way louder, and that Lily's fingernails were sinking into his arm.

The hell hounds were here at last. And they'd come for Barney's soul.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

_2004_

Lily clung to Marshall, sobbing, while thick black smoke dissipated in the air. She couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. How in the hell Marshall managed had to keep it together she would never know.

"Was th-that…? Did you just…?" Marshall gulped.

"Yeah, exorcism. Like the film, but, you know, real." The stranger barked at him.

"Oh my god, it's a miracle!" Marshall whispered in Lily's ear in a hushed, reverential voice. A little louder he said, "So… we're safe now?"

"Yup," the stranger, their saviour, said. "No more demons in this school, Mr Aldrin."

"My name's not-" Marshall began, but Lily gave him a look. Finally she managed to garble out her gratitude.

"Mr Rolie, you saved our lives…" Lily told him, pulling away from Marshall. "How can we ever thank you?"

"Dean… call me Dean," the man replied, sheepishly. "And you don't need to. You folks'll be fine now."

"It's a miracle," Marshall said again, absently lifting a leather-bound book from the table and flipping through it. A second later, it was snatched out of his hand by an older, heavier-set guy with salt-and-pepper stubble.

"Stay safe, kids," The man said, shouldering his shotgun. "C'mon, son," he barked at the younger man, and the two headed outside.

Marshall looked at Lily with wonder in his eyes. "It's all true, Lil. All of it. Ghosts, demons, vampires… even Nessie!"

"Baby," she said, a little wearily, "He didn't say anything about-" But the look on her husband's face, especially after the experience they'd just lived through, made her bite her tongue. "Sure Marshall. Sure. Maybe even aliens."

Marshall's face lit up.

*--*--*

_2008_

There was a woman's voice, James thought, as he rushed over to Barney's side. He could hear a woman's voice. He bent down over Barney's body, trying to ignore the scarlet patches blossoming through the fabric of his clothing, instead stroking a gentle hand over his wide forehead. There was woman's voice, but those two bimbos had fled when Barney collapsed, and Lily was searching the apartment for anything they could use against their invisible foe, whatever it was.

Barney's eyelids fluttered open, to reveal pain-wracked, terrified eyes.

"He's alive!" Lily hissed.

"Yeah, Marshall, let's try and make sure he stays that way, huh?" James said, beckoning to the guy to come help him out.

"We need salt!" Lily gulped, running into Barney's kitchenette and bringing out a tiny salt cellar. "Is this all he's got? This is useless! Barney!"

The man on the floor groaned, blood bubbling across his lips with each breath. "He needs a hospital!" James said, urgently. "Now!" He could hear that woman's voice again, echoing across his skull. He couldn't make out the words for the growling that was getting louder and louder, along with a scratching against the door that was sounding less like claws and more like knives.

"Crap!" Lily said, tipping the salt in a line under the door and only making it half way before running out.

"You're not going anywhere," the woman's voice said, and all three of them turned around to stare at her. James recognized her of course. Ten years later and she hadn't aged, not a single day.

It was the woman from the crossroads.

"I've come for your brother," she said.

"And if we give him to you, you promise not to hurt him?" James gulped.

She smiled a wide painted smile and laughed. "Of course not. My puppies are going to tear him to pieces while you watch."

*--*--*

_2006_

"He just doesn't get it," James thought, as he regarded his brother. He didn't understand love, not even a little. Oh, he gets babies and friendship, and it's not that he doesn't feel anything. It's just like… the part of Barney that was capable of giving away his heart to a woman (or a dude, James was anything but closed-minded) seemed to have been cauterized. It scared him a little.

No matter how tightly Barney hugged him, or enthused about them adopting Sam, no matter how loyal he was as a brother, he just didn't comprehend why James wanted to marry Tom. He'd never understand it.

He'd never _feel_ it.

James hugged his little brother right back and wondered if it was worth it, that deal at the crossroads. To be alive but never be able to love?

He patted his brother's back and pulled away, searching his enthusiastic expression. He had to believe there was hope for his brother, he had to. Maybe one day, Barney would trust someone enough to love again, and that might somehow break this damn curse.

Maybe his brother could win back his soul?

*--*--*

_2008 _

The woman, the beautiful, forever-young devil, laughed in Marshall's face, her red-eyes flashing. "There's no way out of this contract, my sweet. Barney made the deal of his own free will, he's had his ten years, now I've come to collect."

"Ten awesome years…" James said, dully.

"Oh no he hasn't," a voice said.

James and the woman both turned around to Marshall, who was trying to brush the salt all the way across the door.

"What did you say?" The woman demanded.

"He hasn't had ten years," Marshall repeated. "Technically you defaulted on the contract, because Barney was hit by bus with several hours to go. I wouldn't call that awesome, would you Lilypad?"

"Damn straight I wouldn't!" Lily agreed, straightening up, her hands on her hips.

James shook his head as the woman stroke over to the door and Marshall and Lily lunged out of the way, knocking a spray of salt in their wake. The woman yanked open the door and the three of them cringed.

Nothing happened.

"Damn it!" The red-eyed woman said, stamping her feet.

"The terms of the contract were pretty specific," Marshall smiled, taking Lily's hand. "Ten awesome years," he laughed. "You have James to thank for that clause."

Lily laughed while the red-eyed woman yelled and cursed in frustration. "You kiss yo' momma with that mouth?"

Abruptly, the growling noise ceased and the woman turned on them, angrily. "You think you've won? You really think this is a happy ending for him?" She pointed at the floor, where Barney was lying in a pool of blood.

Then she disappeared.

Of course, at that point, none of them understood what she really meant. They were too busy worrying about keeping him alive.

*--*--*

_1998_

The details would stick in James's mind for many years after: The brown bottles lying overturned on the table, caps discarded. The tiny white pills scattered across the floor. The bottle of vodka, empty, bumping against his foot as he rushed inside his apartment.

Barney was barely conscious. "I just want it to stop!" He whispered, his skin as pallid white. "I never want to feel like this. I never wanted it. I love her, James! Why doesn't she love me?"

James pulled his younger brother into a fierce hug, lifting him to his feet. "She's just a girl, Barn. She's just a girl. There are other girls."

"Never," Barney said faintly. It was almost impossible to keep him upright and dial 911 at the same time, but James managed it. "Never gonna love again. Die first."

"She's just a girl," James repeated angrily, tears rolling down his cheek. "She's not worth it. This isn't worth it. Nothing is worth this, Bro!"

Barney slumped, a dead weight in his arms, and James lifted him, carrying him bodily into the street and flagging down a cab.

It took him another seven years to find the kind of love that Barney felt for Shannon. The kind that sets you on fire and has the power to rip you apart. By then, it was way too late to make any difference.

*--*--*

_2008_

When Barney woke up in hospital, he was different. James was surprised that everyone didn't see it the instant his little brother opened his eyes. There was that light of vulnerability that so rarely showed, sure, but there was something else there too.

Something else when Barney looked at Robin.

And James knew only then, understood only then, what had been restored to his brother now that the curse had been lifted. Ten years older, ten years wiser, but Barney's heart was still twenty-three. Would his little brother know what to do with his new feelings?

So many images assaulted James, as he sat at Barney's bedside, watching his brother talk to the woman, this girl who'd caught his eye. James wanted, so desperately, to talk to Barney, to see if he remembered anything at all. But Marshall and Lily had made him promise, what happened wasn't to be discussed, not ever again. Just because they knew about demons, and hell hounds, it didn't mean that anyone would believe them. And Barney had an incredibly difficult, painful road ahead, full of rehabilitation and drug-therapy. None of the doctors were sure if he'd even walk again.

James wondered if it had all been worth it.

But then he saw Barney's face light up when Robin came into the room and he wished with all his heart that this time, Barney wouldn't get hurt, that he'd fall for a girl who could love him back.

But he certainly wasn't going to make a deal with the devil in order to make sure that happened. He'd learned his lesson.


End file.
